The Solar Sabbats: Midsummer (Litha)
Midsummer—also known as Litha or the summer solstice—traditionally marks the first harvest, and at our house that means black raspberries. My great grandmother was known for cooking amazing black raspberry cobbler, and the fruit became a family staple. So, when we moved in, we planted black raspberry briars along our southern fence line. And they love it there.
The berries start ripening around the end of May, so by Litha, I’m ready to make bake—see my previous Litha blog recipes for making black raspberry jam and making black raspberry pie. For me, desert is the perfect Litha food—it’s sunny outside, everything’s growing and full of promise, and it’s not yet suffocatingly hot.
Our Midsummer celebrations are more relaxed than most sabbats—this tends to be a more joyful holiday for us than a productive one. Instead of planting, harvesting, or cleaning, we take a more leisurely approach to this holiday. We accomplish a few things like making jam or pie, putting up sun sails, and adjusting irrigation, but mostly we focus on enjoying the day.
A bonfire is part of most sabbats at our house, but it’s a must for Midsummer (no bears suits or blood eagles, though—sorry). Food and drink, as always, is important and generally involves grilling. We like to enjoy a couple drinks around the fire (ale, mead, and wine are traditional), and what we call a “snacky plate” full of finger foods like kebabs, fruit, nuts, breads, and crackers. Throw in a tarot reading, a little visualization, and it's a great way to mark the midpoint of the year.
If you'd like to learn more about Midsummer and its trappings, Llewellyn's Sabbat Essentials collection features a Midsummer book full of traditions, recipes, rituals, spells, and correlations. Midsummer is also known for heightened faery activity; Magical Faery Plants provides interesting inspirations for working with the good folk. Correlated herbs include mugwort, vervain, yarrow, cinnamon, St. John's wort, rosemary, mistletoe, elderberry, lavender, rose, and chamomile while correlated stones include carnelian, citrine, and tiger's eye.
